Perspectives of New Music is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief), making it the second-oldest music-theory journal now published in the United States (after the Journal of Music Theory).
Perspectives was first published by the Princeton University Press,
initially supported by the Fromm Music Foundation, which had funded the Princeton Seminars in Advanced Musical Studies, in 1959 and 1960. Foundation head Paul Fromm (1906–87), a wine importer who had fled Nazi Germany and settled in Chicago, had proclaimed in the inaugural issue that the journal would be devoted to 'opening avenues of communication between composers and interested performers and listeners' in order to encourage 'a mutual interchange of ideas.' It was to be 'a forum of considerably broader scope' than the previous Princeton Seminars, one that 'would draw together American composers, their European colleagues, their fellows in the musical world, and literate people in every field.'The first issue was favorably reviewed in the Journal of Music Theory, which observed that Berger and Boretz had produced "a first issue which sustains such a high quality of interest and cogency among its articles that one suspects the long delay preceding the yet-unborn Spring, 1963 issue may reflect a scarcity of material up to their standard".
However, as the journal's editorial "perspective" coalesced, Fromm became—in the words of David Gable—disenchanted with the "exclusive viewpoint came to dominate" it. "However intrinsically valuable the kinds of analytic approaches that came to typify it may, Perspectives in essence a highly specialized theory journal for contemporary music. For a decade, Fromm and certain members of the advisory board attempted to broaden the journal's scope, and when the editorial board . . . refused to return to the original conception, Fromm withdrew his funding in 1972.When Fromm discontinued his support, Perspectives formed an independent corporation, which has continued its publication up to the present.
According to its website, Perspectives "is directed to a readership consisting of composers, performers, scholars, and all others interested in any kind of contemporary music. Published material includes theoretical research, analyses, technical reports, position papers by composers, sociological and philosophical articles, interviews, reviews, and, for special purposes, short musical scores or other creative productions". "It is an independent journal, incorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation," which "publish two, 250-page issues per year".
Benjamin Boretz edited the journal from 1962 through 1983, with co-editors Arthur Berger (1962–64), Edward T. Cone (1968–72), and Elaine Barkin (1972–83). John Rahn was editor from 1983 until 1993, and Boretz again in 1994/95. From 1995 until 2000, there was a group of five editors: Joseph Dubiel, Marion Guck, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, Andrew Mead, and Stephen Peles. The current editors are Boretz, Robert Morris, and John Rahn.